Gov. Mills' Brother Linked to Illegal Chinese Marijuana Sites in Maine

Paul Mills, a Farmington attorney and eldest brother of Maine Gov. Janet Mills, has been placed by public records at the center of a network of illegal Chinese marijuana grows that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimates spans more than 270 properties statewide, all controlled by Asian Transnational Criminal Organizations.

The finding, drawn from a multi-year investigation published this week, shows Mills continued facilitating real estate deals for out-of-state cannabis operators well after federal prosecutors connected those same networks to human trafficking, fentanyl financing, and funds transferred back to the Chinese Communist Party. At least one property involved in Mills' transactions was flagged directly by DHS for ties to organized crime.

Mills first surfaced in the investigation in March 2024, when real estate transfer records showed he had served as the closing attorney on a gift transfer of a nine-acre property at 51 Cider Hill in Corinna to a Chinese national living in Guangdong Province, China. The seller was Xiling Ou, 44, of Malden, Massachusetts. The transfer was executed just 13 days after Penobscot County sheriff's deputies and Homeland Security agents raided an illegal marijuana grow five miles away.

Mills told NewsNation he was unaware of the property's intended use. "The broker I worked with in Farmington real estate transactions said she had this person that wanted to convey this to her mother," he said. Since then, records show he has continued closing deals for out-of-state Chinese cannabis entrepreneurs, including a cluster of grow operations within miles of his own New Sharon home.

Maine State Police records show the agency had knowledge of "Chinese gangs from New York" operating in the state as early as March 2021. Over the years that followed, raids in Somerset, Penobscot, Franklin, Kennebec, Lincoln, and York counties uncovered thousands of plants, firearms, and bulk processed cannabis. Somerset County alone accounted for 15 of approximately 40 search warrants executed during one concentrated enforcement push.

A Somerset County warrant served on April 1, 2025, at a South Road property in Harmony resulted in the arrest of Wenfeng Chen, 51, of Malden, Massachusetts. Deputies seized 1,405 marijuana plants, roughly 100 pounds of processed cannabis, a 9mm pistol, ammunition, and $1,600 in drug proceeds. Chen and co-defendant Xinwen Zhang, 71, of Boston, both face Class B felony charges for unlawful cultivation and drug trafficking, offenses that carry up to ten years in prison. It was the second time law enforcement had hit the same address; a May 2024 search yielded more than 1,200 plants but no one was present.

In July 2025, a federal grand jury indicted six Chinese nationals on charges of drug trafficking, money laundering, and human smuggling. One remains at large.

Sen. Susan Collins pressed DHS and FBI leadership on the issue at a 2025 hearing. "These grow houses are destroying homes," Collins said. "They're threatening our communities, our public health and our national security."

Gov. Mills has issued no substantive public response. At a March 2024 press conference, she dismissed a question about the national security implications of the illegal grows as unrelated to the event at hand. Her office has not responded to comment requests. Investigators have now identified more than 300 properties suspected of ties to the network, and with no enforcement timeline issued from Augusta, local sheriffs and federal agents have been left to execute warrants county by county, without state-level coordination or any public accounting of when seized properties will be inspected, prosecuted, or remediated.